In recent months, Americans looking for eggs have faced empty shelves in their grocery stores. The escalating threat of avian flu has forced farmers to kill millions of chickens to prevent its spread.
Nearly 70 years ago, Maurice Hilleman, an expert in influenza, also worried about finding eggs. Hilleman, however, needed eggs not for his breakfast, but to make the vaccines that were key to stopping a potential influenza pandemic.
Hilleman was born a year after the notorious 1918 influenza pandemic swept the world, killing 20 million to 100 million people. By 1957, when Hilleman began worrying about the egg supply, scientists had a significantly more sophisticated understanding of influenza than they had previously. This knowledge led them to fear that a pandemic similar to that of 1918 could easily erupt, killing millions again.
As a historian of medicine, I have always been fascinated by the key moments that halt an epidemic. Studying these moments provides some insight into how and why one outbreak may become a deadly pandemic, while another does not.